


Resurrection

by awriterthatwrites



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Catacombs n' Stuff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Hand porn, Heavy Angst, Hindu Mythology - Freeform, Love Confessions, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Mythology - Freeform, Retconn, continuity, fuck the finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-02 04:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6551620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awriterthatwrites/pseuds/awriterthatwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Grace Dixon's journal gets a headline role; the clusterfuck of S3 mythology is hammered into the semblance of a coherent thing; runes are explained, tablets are discussed, and Persistent!Crane finds the magic formula to get to bae.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hallucination

**Author's Note:**

> Fuck the finale. 
> 
> We write our own endings, because this fandom has been truer to the characters of Abbie Mills and Ichabod Crane than those motherfuckers will ever be.
> 
> I write this for my own peace and catharsis and joy. I hope this gives you an inkling of the same.

It has been 6 months.  
  
Or several weeks, depending on the dimension.  
  
For Crane, and Miss Jenny — who had but little recourse to follow him on this fool’s errand — it has seemed an eternity. Stuck in this endless chasm of the Catacombs that Betsy had slumbered in, searching desperately for the spell to regenerate Abbie’s trapped body.  
  
Crane scours another set of runes. He is certain, _certain_ , the answer lies here. It must. For it is their last best hope.  
  
“Here,” he says, the eagerness impossible to extinguish from his voice as he gestures to the symbols, fingers running over them in heightened agitation. The translation comes easily; a product of months spent poring over countless other wall carvings.

 _“A Witness soul the Box must hold…its Strength to build the Hidden Throne…A Willing Heart it doth enfold…”_  
  
His brow furrows. “... _To forever Languish in is darkened Mold.”_  
  
He flips through the ancient Norse dictionary in front of him. “My translation needs work, it seems.”  
  
“Crane.” Miss Jenny drops a heavy, knowing hand to his shoulder.  
  
“Every spell we have encountered on these walls contains a counter spell. Every prophecy, an alternative ending. There is a way. There is always another way.”  
  
“Crane.”  
  
“Perhaps a volume of Old Norse —”  
  
“ _Cra —_ ”  
  
His fist slams down onto the stone hard enough to scrape bone.  “THERE IS A WAY.”  
  
His voice seems to shake the runes so that even they turn away, affronted. Miss Jenny falls silent. He hangs his head, aggrieved. “Apologies, Miss Jenny. I did not mean —”  
  
“I know. I want her back just as bad as you do. But you’ve been at this for three days straight, Crane. Take a break. Eat a protein bar. You’re no use to anyone when you’re damn near hallucinating.”  
  
He accepts the _Cliff Bar_ begrudgingly and slides down next to her, contemplating the strange path that has brought them to this point. Though Miss Jenny is undoubtedly right, he can’t help but note that hallucination is the very reason they’re here; the very reason that hope, once extinguished, now flares brightly within him again.  
  
For it was a hallucination that first brought him news of Abbie.  
  
——-  
  
It had been several months after her passing. Weeks of endless meetings with Washington’s cabal in the District of Columbia, poring over ancient Masonic texts and attending briefings that compressed hundreds of years of American history into accursed, bulleted _PowerPoints._  
  
Talk of potential Witnesses had run rampant; stacks of files and biographies were passed around, scoured, dismissed. The FBI had offered its resources, opening is vast databases to Crane’s eager perusal. Agent Reynolds had even allowed him the use of the Leftenant’s old office as he worked late into the night, the smell of her hovering in the plants upon the windowsill and in the desk’s wooden grain.  
  
And yet, even with Agent Reynolds' blessing, even with Ezra Mills supplying much-needed insight into the family tree, and even with Miss Jenny, tracking down artifact upon artifact for a glimmer of information, the Witness to replace the Leftenant had yet to appear.  
  
Whoever the party was, they had most assuredly missed the memo. There was no sign from the heavens; no hidden tract in Washington's Bible pointing to augurs of a new arrival. In truth, there was no indication that her Eternal Soul had passed to someone else. 

And in truth — Crane was slowly losing the will to fight.

If the Catacombs had been a knife to the ribs, this was the long bleed-out. A slow, bitter march towards years that carried nothing for him. He had asked her then what he still asks of her now: every night, wrapped in her sheets on the floor of his sullen studio apartment: _What is there for me in a world without you?_

Nothing, was the answer.

More often than not, he'd contemplated following her. If a Witness was meant to be summoned, then surely two new ones could come forth. That thought comforted most when he was at the bottom of his second or third whiskey bottle, bottle of sleeping pills procured from a sympathetic apothecary at the ready. 

Ichabod Crane did not fear death. He'd died before, and he'd gladly do it again. If it meant reaching her, he'd down every single pill; bloody plastic bottle and all.

And that...

That was when Grace Dixon’s journal started talking to him.

——-  
  
He’d heard it, initially.

Late one night, slumped over a table of books in the Library of Congress. He’d awoken to a gentle scratch, like a rodent finding its hole, or the echo of restless feet. He’d sat up, looked around. Fumbled beneath the pile for the source of the sound, discarding several volumes before coming upon Grace Dixon’s leather-bound tome.  
  
It was a keepsake he often traveled with in his breast pocket, tucked close to his heart. It reminded him of her, of their shared destiny; that she was not merely a footnote in his story, despite her defeated words that day. She was destined to fill these pages. To shoulder the mantle they had both been called to bear together.  
  
He’d thumbed through the pages, heart stuttering at the fresh marks scrawled across a once-blank page.  
  
_I miss you._  
  
The familiar, looping “Y”s. The same flattened “O’s. It was her handwriting, indeed. He’d scrambled for a pen, etching his own response with haste.  
  
_Abbie?_  
  
But the words had continued, oblivious to his response.  
  
_I never said it when I was alive — not even after the Catacombs. But I did, Crane. I still do. Worst part of all is the things I missed: taking you to that Dodgers game, cold hot dog and warm beer. Crane on a Plane. Your first motorcycle ride. I wish I’d —_  
  
The words stop. His heart caves.  
  
Then, slowly: _I wish I’d spent less time planning and more time living._

 _I —_  
  
He’d slammed the book shut. Sucked in big gulping breaths, hands shaking with the dizzying impossibility of it. _It couldn’t be._  
  
A long, measured breath. A walk out into the cold night air to assure himself he hadn’t suddenly dropped into another dimension. A call to Miss Jenny, who had roared over in her great big pick up, all but knocking over street signs in her rush to see the proof.  
  
The proof that now, months later, Crane holds in his hands as he sits in the Catacombs, the words faded but no less portentous.

She is out there, somewhere. And he will find her.


	2. Ethereal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Afterlife has its perks.

“Washington?"  
  
“No.”

"Hume?"

"Heavens, no."  
  
“Voltaire?”  
  
Benjamin Franklin throws her a rueful side-eye over his spectacles _,_ and Abbie grins. She's been helping the inventor to catalogue books in Jefferson’s regenerated Fenistela for...some portion of time (she's yet to figure out how time-space works in this place), and still can't get over the fact that she’s _here_. Helping _Franklin_ catalogue Witness books in J _efferson’s damn Fenistela._  
  
The Afterlife has its perks.  
  
_Or…whatever this place is,_ she reasons, looking around at the shimmering imprint of the space.

She’d felt nothing when Pandora’s Box had exploded. Only a searing, blinding heat. Darkness, and then… a sudden, bubbling sensation. Effervescent…like champagne rising to the top of the glass. She’d shot up, skating on air, fizzy with the lightness of being, and then —  
  
Hands. Tendrils, really. Ethereal and joyous, wrapping around her with infinite care, beckoning her to this strange resting place, this _Soul Group_ , as she’d come to know it. A haven where the Keepers charged with guiding her rested. Mama; Corbin; even damn Ben Franklin with his bawdy humor and saucy side-eye. They were all here; resting and waiting until they were called back.  
  
She giggles — _yeah, she feels that light_ — and shoves Voltaire’s _Candide_ back onto the shelf.  
  
“So you _did_ get up to some questionable business.”  
  
“Oh, my dear Abigail, you haven't the faintest. Did you know the heroine in Candide is based off a _dame de nuit_ he and I once —“  
  
_“Ben.”_  
  
The reprimand chimes through the doorway, at once mellifluous and stern, and Abbie grins. Even at 5’2 and non-corporeal, Lori Mills cuts an imposing figure, and Abbie unconsciously straightens her spine, still beholden to its command after all these years. She thinks she'll never tire of hearing that voice — not now; not even in the next life... _especially_ when it’s scolding a salacious Founding Father.  
  
“Aren’t you supposed to be teaching my girl?”  
  
“Of course I am," he retorts, adjusting his frames. "We've just begun 18th-century French diplomacy."  
  
“M-hm. C'mon, Diplomacy," Lori murmurs to Abbie, and the former Witness can’t do much but shoot Franklin an apologetic look as she falls in line. “You just wait until Jefferson crosses over again,” her mother calls out. “And sees what you've made of his collection.”

Thomas Jefferson, as Abbie would come to find, was Material these days. That's what they called it when a soul reincarnated. He'd been dispatched to help guide  the New Witness's journey on earth...though Abbie was still working out the kinks of exactly how, and when, and _who._  
  
They float into the hall (another perk of the Afterlife) just far enough for Lori to shoot Abbie a chastising Look. "Corbin's been waiting."  
  
“You know how Franklin gets, Mama," Abbie says, voice _sotto voce_. “He lures you in with some gossip about Washington or Hancock, and next thing you know, you’re in there indexing Lesser Demons of the Fifth Realm, or whatever he's trying to pawn off.”  
  
Lori hooks an arm through Abbie's. “Was it time well spent, baby? Did you find any answers?”  
  
Abbie averts her eyes. She's doesn't want to talk about the question they’ve all been silently asking since she got here; the question that’s kept her flitting through the Fenistela and other countless floating libraries, digging through eons of history for a clue; the question she’d consulted Corbin on; asked Joe about; even tracked down Orion to see if he had insight into.  
  
The very simple question of why there’s no New Witness on earth despite her death.  
  
Thing is: Abbie’s not dumb. She knows she fucked up the timeline somehow. Upbraid all the prophecies — the ones that counted on her sticking around. She won’t even get started on the tablet — an ancient Sumerian still-frame as it turns out, depicting the original First Two Witnesses chasing Satan as he ran from the Garden of Eden — and how that ancestral line had managed to fall to her, despite every impossibility.  
  
She knows she was meant to carry a legacy that had been thousands of years in the making. Grace Dixon had told her that much, and Crane —  
  
She inhales sharply, still unused to the sting — Crane had been her touchstone to that promise.  
  
Hell, every other word out of that man’s mouth had been “bond” and “together”. How she’d dismissed him countless times, chalking his words up to colonial platitudes; syrupy blatherings she thought he’d felt obliged to say.  
  
Only now does she understand the words for what they were: a testament to her purpose. Crane had literally been bearing witness to her — to the greater part of her Self that was called to step into its full Power.

But she’d been too focused on the fight to see it.  
  
Too focused to see a lot of things.  
  
The sound of a roaring laugh distracts her, and they turn the corner to a familiar scene: Mabie’s tavern, afterlife-style, Corbin Senior and Junior holding court in its midst, pints of beer and apple pie for miles.  
  
“Just like that?”  
  
“The whole damn beast — sucked right into that djinn’s bottle! Couldn’t feel my hand for days.”  
  
Joe catches Abbie’s eye, wiping away tears as his laughter subsides. “Abs — you gotta hear this.”  
  
August turns — another sight she’ll never tire of — and sets his twinkling blues on her. “There’s my girl. You ready for Colonial Monsters 202? Got some old diary notes Ben managed to dig up from Big Ash’s great-great-grandfather. You’re gonna get a kick out of them.”  
  
She pushes herself to smile. “You got it.”  
  
A quick nod, and Joe’s sliding off the bench, tipping his imaginary hat to his father. “Catch you by the pond." A quick kiss to Lori's cheek as he reaches for a pint, and he's shuffling off.  
  
Abbie slides into the booth and takes stock of the scene. Her mother has retreated to the bar, busying herself to pretend like she's not eavesdropping. In the background, familiar faces linger: her FBI boss, her first out of Quantico — playing Texas hold’em; her old psychiatrist who’d died at the hands of the Sandman — now laughing. Victims she'd ID'd as a police officer; as an Agent. Children from Roanoke who'd fallen to that mysterious plague.  
  
So many losses, now recovered. All serving a higher purpose in a larger tapestry she’d barely glimpsed at during her time on earth.  
  
Abbie pushes around a half-empty glass of beer. “Why do I feel like I’m not supposed to be here?”  
  
Corbin downs half the pie in a forkful. “Why _do_ you feel like you’re not supposed to be here?”  
  
“How is it the afterlife's made you an even bigger pain in the ass?”  
  
“Pain in the ass, or Zen Buddhist master?”  
  
She chuckles. He leans back, assessing her in that way that makes her feel like plastic wrap. Flimsy and see-through. She sighs, reluctantly admitting what's been on her mind since her arrival.  
  
“This whole Witness thing…it’s a two-person deal."

"You're worried about him."

"He shouldn’t be doing it alone.”  
  
“You check up on him, don’t you?”  
  
Yeah, she does. But she knows it, and Corbin knows it. _It’s not enough._  
  
Abbie swirls what’s left of the beer and downs it. “They should give you a Witness 101 pamphlet when you cross over. Tell you who they’ve got lined up next. Maybe an afterlife hotline number you can call into for a hint.”  
  
Corbin smiles. It’s one of those enigmatic, infuriating ones that tells her he knows more than he’s saying. "You’ll get it, kiddo.”  
  
“Get what?”

He reaches into his pocket and slides a book across the table. "You ever thought about writing some of this down? Process what's happened to you? It's not a small thing, what you went through.”  
  
She runs her fingers over the leather-bound copy. It's old. Worn. Familiar. “Aunt Grace's journal."  
  
“One of the many journals she kept during her life. It was on her when she was burned at the stake. Made it’s way up here, like all good things destroyed in the material world that are part of our Line."  
  
She thumbs through it delicately, skimming through the worn text. The passages are heavier than the ones she remembers from 1781; the words of a woman who’s lived. Who’s lost.

She takes it, thanks him, and plays the dutiful student for the next while.  
  
It’s only much later, when she's transported herself to the old river mill she'd hidden in as a child, that she opens the journal.

She smooths back a page, pen poised.

There's a lot she wants to say; a lot that's jumbled inside her.

But she knows one thing for sure, and that's the first thing she writes.

_I miss you._


	3. Visitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry so long between updates. Trying to unfuck this mythology is like trying to glue cracked eggs back together. 
> 
> Forthcoming chapters to explain who - and what - our Witness really is. (Oh my!) 
> 
> Couldn't resist shoehorning in a cameo by the Captain of the S.S. Ichabbie. Trollando, here's to you.

“But it is _here._ ” Crane swivels Grace Dixon’s journal around, pointing once again to the page. The words to him are plain as day: scrawled in that tight, familiar chicken scratch he knows so well; had come to know through countless investigation reports and hastily written take-out orders.  
  
_I miss you._ They are _her_ words, of that he is certain.  
  
If only he could convince the man in front of him.  
  
“Agent Reynolds — Daniel — these words…they’ve been written somehow, somewhere, by the Leftenant. If you would but permit me a meeting with the FBI’s local graphologist — ”  
  
Reynold slides his hands into his pockets, unmoved. “You know the drill. I can’t commit resources to something I can’t see.”  
  
Crane rocks back on his heels. He knows the words are invisible to non-Witnesses. Miss Jenny had told him as much when he’d shown her the diary.  
  
If only Reynolds would have _faith_ …  
  
“Look,” Reynolds says, eyeing Crane warily. “I get it. We’ve been at this for months. But — ” His eyes flicker over Crane’s shoulder. “I think it’s time to explore other possibilities.”  
  
“Such as?”  
  
Reynolds gestures to the two men waiting by the door. “Maybe this is all in your head.”  
  
The men reach for him, but Crane bucks out of their grasp, desperate. “This is _not_ a hallucination!”  
  
Reynolds leans in close, cool brown meeting crazed blue. “Can you tell me that with one-hundred percent certainty?"

Crane knows he can't. So does Danny. And with that, the men descend, hauling Crane through corridors he once strode through with his diminutive better half, smiling proudly by her side.

— & —

  
“Told you it wouldn’t work.” Missy Jenny sits across from Crane hours later, eyeing the cracked ceiling with bald disgust.  
  
“I am allowed on visitation per month. I chose to spend it judiciously,” he answers curtly. He’s lying on the thin cot chained to the wall, methodically chewing the Snickers Bar she has managed to sneak in.  
  
Since his commitment at Tarrytown, there’s been little that has held his interest, save the mystery of Grace Dixon’s journal. Fueled by a steady diet of rage and righteous indignation, he has had little appetite for much else.  
  
But today’s attempt with Reynolds — his third in as many months — has got him particularly vexed. He extends his hand, eyes still affixed to the ceiling, for the bag of Doritos he knows is concealed in her pocket.  
  
It lands on his chest with a muted crinkle. “You know Abbie would kick your ass for eating this crap.”  
  
“I pray the day will come,” he says, tearing the bag open.  
  
Jenny casts him a sidelong look as she flips through Grace’s journal. “For what it’s worth, Big Ash says he’s sorry.”  
  
In the days following his discovery of the journal, Crane had consulted endless soothsayers and sages in an attempt to reach the Leftenant, including Big Ash’s tribal council. Their collective advice had been to let the dead lie — advice which Crane had of course, ignored, proceeding to conduct a one-man ayahuasca-fueled sweat lodge ceremony that had resulted in him wandering into Mabey’s half-naked, declaring the Regulars had once again invaded, and well…  
  
Now he is here. Tarrytown Psychiatric, voluntarily committed. Ninety-six salutary days and counting.  
  
“He was right," Crane reflects softly. "I attempted to tread a line that mortals are not meant to cross.” He turns to her, clear-eyed and resolute in a way she hasn’t seen in months. “That is why we must consult someone who has.” 

— & —

The drive to Canada is quiet.  
  
Somber, but comfortable in that way, when the outcome of a journey is already known.  
  
Miss Jenny plays a mix of Beyoncé and Ella Fitzgerald. Crane downs a bottle of Jamaican rum and reads, eyes lingering upon the latest passage inscribed in the journal.  
  
_I helped Franklin today. Wild, right? He tells me all the books — the knowledge, the texts, everything that’s got to do with Witnessing — ends up back here when it’s destroyed. The Library of Alexandria; Atlantis (yeah, it was real); Jefferson’s Fenistela; they’re all here. It’s gonna take me years…decades to go through it. There’s no speed-reading option in the afterlife package._  
  
_Corbin thinks I’m overcompensating. Mama thinks…_  
  
_Point is, there’s only one Witness right now against the world, and he needs all the help he can get._  
  
His fingers gloss over the words, torn. The half of him breaks that she seeks to aid him even from the Great Beyond; the other still half still steeped in anger over her sacrifice. How dare she do this again? Relegate herself to a helper, a mere footnote in what was to be their shared history?  
  
Besides, what help can she be if he can’t even reach her? She hasn’t come to him in dreams. Hasn’t materialized in astral visions. Crane takes another swig, more hurt than he’d care to admit.  
  
If their bond is so strong, _why can’t he find her?_  
  
He shifts in his seat, mind growing limp with drink. If he is being truly honest with himself — and what’s honesty if not between a man and his bottle — he knows that the real anger lies with himself.  He’d been a fool and a coward to let her go. God’s wounds — he’d been in such shock and disbelief at the unfolding events that he’d only been able to watch as she’d flung herself into the box, unable to process yet another sacrifice — _sod it, death_ — upon the noble altar of their sworn duty. _Not death,_ he hastily corrects. _A crossing over._  
  
For crossing over means there is a way to cross back.

— & —

Hours later — or perhaps minutes — Crane feels himself being dragged. Soused as he is, he can still make out two voices.  
   
“Thanks for hauling. He drank all the way up here.”  
  
“Don't blame him. Woulda done the same."  
  
A chuff. He feels a light slap on his cheek. “Crane. Hey, Crane.”  
  
Miss Jenny looks down at him. Standing next to her is a face he hasn’t seen in a very long time.  
  
“Captain Irving," he mutters, attempting a deferential nod despite the room's dizzying spin.  
  
Irving kneels, assessing the drunk soldier with a long, knowing look. “Getting weak, Crane. You used to put down two bottles of Appleton without blinking an eye.” It is only then that Crane feels himself break. He reaches blindly for the man who had once so ferociously fought alongside them, and Frank holds him, their embrace conveying sorrow and support in equal measure. It’s a few minutes before Crane can compose himself. When he does turn around at last, his eyes are red, his face haggard, his expression pinched and resolute.  
  
“Is it ready?"  
  
Irving nods. “We need to hurry. Only got a few hours before I gotta get back to Macey and Cynthia.”

Frank leads them into a small cabin - a shack, really - lit by a bright fire and several long, tapered candles. Miss Jenny has already set up the accouterments they'd hauled up from the Archives: bowls of sage and salt; a spectrometer; Washington’s Bible; and several runes they'd hacked out of the Catacombs.  
  
“You’re certain this was the way she arranged it?” Crane asks.  
  
Irving's eyes drift over the table. “Spent most of the time figuring out how to lie to my wife about my soul being taken, so no, to answer your question: I don’t remember a damn thing about the set-up.”  
  
Crane had hoped that re-enacting that night — when Katrina had tested Frank’s soul to see if he was truly alive — would be an entry way into the Place Beyond — wherever that may be — and a gateway to Abbie. He was certain she was not in the Catacombs; nor in Purgatory. Her diary entries told him as much. Wherever she was…it was a place beyond the living. A place Frank Irving’s soul had been to, and could conceivably travel to once again.  
  
For the first time in a long time, Crane wishes for Katrina. She would be able to instruct them in this ceremony; tell them the exact number of candles and incantations; how to place the divination objects just so.

Jenny sees it on his face and gives his hand a squeeze. "We got this, Crane.”  
  
“I only want it to be right.”  
  
“I got Grace's blood flowing through my veins, remember? Doesn't get any righter than this."

And with a wink and a smirk, she closes her eyes and begins reciting.  
  
There’s nothing at first; simply the slow, languorous crack of firewood in the hearth. There’s a faint breeze to the candles that Crane thinks he imagines; and then, as Jenny’s voice rises in tempo and volume, a demonstrable drop in the room temperature. The candles flicker, and the runes laid out in front of them begin to vibrate with a barely perceptible tremor.

Wordlessly, Irving holds out his hand. Crane grasps it, feeling a low pulse course through him. The runes are awakening, their dull surface shimmering with golden light.

"Pick it up," Frank murmurs, gesturing to the rune closest to them. Crane picks up the symbol of Kaunaz — a left-sided bracket shape that symbolizes fire and knowledge — and instinctively hands it to Frank.

"That's the bridge," Jenny says. "It'll let you talk to the other ones."  
  
Crane turns just as another rune — one shaped like an “X” — floats to him. “Gebo,” he breathes. The run that means "gift", the one he’d seen most often in the Catacombs. In the more esoteric tomes, it stood for sacrifice, fair exchange.  
  
And sacred marriage.  
  
“Crane.”  
  
It is Irving’s voice; but not. Far off, but near. He reaches for it.  
  
“Cih-rane.”  
  
A sharper tone; melodic. Chastising. “ _Kiran._ ”  
  
He looks up, but he sees nothing. It’s dark; his hands fumbling at the gritty walls of a cave; carvings etched into them. A _pffftttt,_ and then a spark of light, and then —

Eyes. Large, round, demanding. “Kiran. Hurry. There is little time.”  
  
Crane rocks back on his heels, baffled. He’s crouched low, bare feet dug into the dusty earth. As the fire grows, so too, does his vision: it is a large cave, full of the symbols he’d seen in the Catacombs, but painted. A hasty job, as if someone had dipped their fingers into paint and scrawled hurriedly across the walls.  
  
Instinctively, he knows what he reads is an incantation; a spell disguised as an innocuous poem.  
  
The eyes reach him in the dim light once again, urgent, determined. “Pour, Kiran. Pour.”  
  
He looks down. In his hands, a small bowl, filled with melted gold. Out of the darkness, lithe fingers reach out to cover his own, fingers curling around his wrists as they guide him towards a mold that lies on the floor…a mold in the shape of The Rune.  
  
The one Abbie had painted on her garden shed wall; the one she had drawn obsessively without rhyme or reason. The one that had saved him from certain death at the hands of The Hidden One.  
  
The one that had bound her to him.  
  
Crane looks up into the frightened eyes of the woman in front of him, and startling clarity rushes through him.  
  
“Of course, my love,” he hears himself say. He pours quickly, reciting the words written upon the wall that now come easily to him, as they do to her, for they are their inheritance. Their promise.

_"Witness."_

His blood freezes. Boldly, he ignores the voice. But it won't be cast aside. It whips through the cave, dousing the small fire. He is plunged into darkness, and the tight, tingling fear along his spine ricochets as the voice nestles into his neck, low and taunting beneath his ear.  
  
_"Witness..."_

He grasps for the still-cooling rune, fingers curling around the mold. He flings it into the darkness, praying it hits its mark.

A piercing shriek as it collides with the voice, and the scream of pain thunders through the rock, jolting the cave awake. It comes alive, stone toppling at a frightening, brutal clip. He feels himself being buried, bones cracking, dirt piling into his mouth so that he can't breathe -

                                                                                                                              — & —  
  
Crane gasps, gagging. He can still taste the dirt. Feel the stones crush his ribs. He presses his forehead against the cool floor; palms sweat-soaked, head ringing. 

The candles are all but extinguished, the runes dead and quiet on the floor. Irving sits far away on the other side, propped against the wall, wiping sweat from his brow.

"Crane!" Jenny reaches for him, but Irving waves her back.

“Let him be, Mills,” he murmurs. His voice tells her that he'd been there, too. Had seen what Crane saw.  
  
“What?" Jenny looks between the both of them, anxious and perplexed. "What is it?"  
  
Irving retrieves several beers. Crane takes one. They drink in silence.

When she can't take it anymore, Jenny rocks back on her heels and reaches for her gun. "Someone better start talking, or I'm gonna start shooting. Crane. Frank. What the hell did you see?"

Crane looks down at the Rune of Gebo, its surface dulled to a lackluster grey. "A memory," he says, voice far away. "A very old one."

"About what?" She snatches the symbol from his hand, thrusting it into his face. "About this? About the rune - the one between you and Abbie?"

"It is not only a rune," he says, his mind still refusing to process. "It is a talisman. Meant to bind the two Witnesses together to their sworn duty."

"But it was destroyed by The Hidden One."

"Yes."

"So what does that mean?" When he doesn't respond, she scoots closer. "Crane. What does that mean _for my sister?"_

His eyes trace the symbol as he works it between thumb and forefinger. How useless a thing. How inconsequential. He tosses it to the floor, a dry, empty chuckle escaping. "It means bugger all, Jenny."

There is no need for formality, now. For anything, really.

The chuckle turns into laughter. Hysterical and unhinged. "It means _nothing_ , because it was never meant for her." 

_"What?"_

He looks up, eyes bright with incredulity and rage. "Abbie was never meant to be a Witness, Jenny. She was the very thing we were created to destroy."

 

 


	4. Remembrance, Pt.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His eyes snap to hers, clocking her presence for the first time. “Jenny. Forgive me. I — ” He exhales, attempting a measure of composure. “I am — I have a theory. To say it out loud…” He voice grows soft. “I dare not say more until I am certain."
> 
> "Of?"
> 
> He slides into the truck and shoots her a parting glance. "Of who your sister truly is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Steers ship straight into shitstorm*
> 
> We are full-tilt on a collision course, ya'll. Revisionist mythology and tigers and bears, oh my. 
> 
> This chapter off-roads into Hinduism because the writers totally fucked any coherence between Sumerian and Nordic history, and I personally have a soft spot for destructive female archetypes.

_"What?"_  
  
Jenny rushes to catch up to Crane, whose footfalls eat the ground as he strides towards her truck with full-on tunnel vision. Irving, her gear — everything's still back at the house — but all her attention’s currently zeroed in on the crazed man pounding pavement like he's fleeing a crime scene.  
  
“Hey.” She grabs his arm. “ _Hey._ Quantum Leap. I'm talking to you."  
  
Crane manages to pry open the door before Jenny flings herself against it, fuming.  
  
"You're not going anywhere until you tell me what you saw."  
  
His eyes snap to hers, clocking her presence for the first time. “Jenny. Forgive me. I — ” He exhales, attempting a measure of composure. “I am — I have a theory. To say it out loud…” He voice grows soft. “I dare not say more until I am certain."  
  
"Of?"  
  
He slides into the truck and shoots her a parting glance. "Of who your sister truly is."  
  
And with that, he guns the engine and disappears.  
  
———  
  
“Come, _raksha!_ Weak as you are!”  
  
The beast turns. Grunts.  
  
A dark smile of triumph spreads across the woman’s face. She has stirred its rage.  
  
Snarling, it leaps towards her on legs of thunder, the blood of its torn skin scorching the earth in its wake. She drops with an artful arc, slashes the beast across the belly, and lets a discus fly through the reddened sky, praying it hits its mark. The steel of the blade lances through the creature’s thick heel, and it falls, bellowing in pain. Hobbled, it can do little but look back as she runs, its jowls spewing bile at her retreating form.  
  
“I will gut you as you sleep,” it growls.  
  
She grins. “Then I shall sleep with both eyes open.”  
  
And with that, the Daughter of Durga vanishes over the horizon.  
  
———  
   
She bathes.  
  
Pelts discarded, armor cast aside, sword hanging from a nearby tree. 

"You took a beating today, _betee,"_ says Mother Durga from the sky - the divine aspect who spans the heavens and keeps watch over her warrior daughter.

"That demon-spawn Mahisa has been a hellish beast to defeat," the Goddess grumbles, wiping blood from her thigh.

"Why do you limit yourself to such a weak vessel? Transform yourself into a gazelle that may leap away; or an elephant whose hide no armor can pierce! Better yet - transform back into your natural form, so that nothing may touch you."

It is true; if she were to revert to her original state - the pure, dark energy of the cosmos - she would be formless and formidable. But she would not be able to feel the river soothe her aching limbs; the wind kiss her open wounds; the soil cushion her cracked feet.

And that is what the Goddess loves most about the mortal body: the ability to _feel._  
  
It is in this form that Kiran first discovers her. Bent over, naked, hair loose, hands tracing over her supple form.  
  
He cannot help but smile. For all her fearsome reputation, the Goddess of Power, Creation and Destruction is surprisingly small. Diminutive in stature, with breasts like ripe mangoes, a waist he can span with his hands, and skin that seems to suck the light even as it emits an unearthly glow.  
  
She is too distracted by cleaning a wound to hear him approach. It is only when a twig snaps beneath his foot that she turns, casting him an irritated look.  
  
“Why do you ambush me without warning, mortal?”  
  
“Ambush? Hardly. I only came to see with my own eyes what the legends say.”  
  
His skin is fair; his eyes blue as the river. A faint smile ghosts his lips, and she frowns. _How dare he not cower in fear? Does he not know who she is?_ She turns to him fully, water trailing between her breasts, and throws her hair back, revealing the necklace of bone that speaks of her countless victories. “And what do _they_ say?”  
  
Boldly, his eyes dip below the water’s edge to trace her form. “That the gods have imbued you with all their strength to kill the demon that eats our world. And yet you have not been able to defeat him.”  
  
She shifts before she can stop herself; anger exploding through her until she’s nothing but a raw, howling wind that throws him back against the river bank. He lands hard, breathless, and he can only gaze up in wonder as the wind once again takes on human form, a pair of fierce eyes shining out from a void of swirling darkness.  
  
“You know not your place, _mortal_ ,” she sneers.  
  
“I mean no harm,” he says softly. “I only wish to offer my help.”  
  
She laughs. A full-bellied guffaw; one that shakes the trees and causes the ground to shake.  “And what help can a mortal possibly offer a god?”  
  
He kneels before her, extracting an ancient tablet from the pouch at his waist.

"Not merely a mortal. A Witness."

  
———

Irving's cleaning up when Jenny enters. He hands her a beer. They drink in companionable silence.

"Archives?" Irving guesses.

"Ten bucks says he's looking for something in the Grand Grimoire."

"Raise you twenty it's Corbin files."

They clink bottles. At length, Jenny turns to him. "So - did your soul really create a bridge to someplace else?"

Irving puts down his bottle, eyes tracing it pensively. "Not a place. A time."

———

The Goddess eyes the stone tablet warily. It is an ancient carving from Sumer: one she knows well.

“How have you come across the Tablet of the Destroyers?”  
  
“Because I am of their line.”  
  
He points to the man brandishing the sword. “This is my forebear. The sword he wields, called Methuselah, can cast out demons with a single blow.” He points to the woman. “My Other is imbued with magic. She can cast Mahisa’s armies back into the depths of hell."

"A sword and magic are hardly enough to defeat this beast."

"We know this land well; we are sworn to defend it. Use us. Let us help you defeat this hell-spawn.”  
  
"You will die," she says flatly.

"I do not fear death," he replies.

She tilts her head, a spark of admiration in her eyes.

Then - without warning - she lunges. Plunging her hand into his chest and grasping his beating heart.

Kiran gasps, eyes turning black as she wraps her fingers around him. Weighing. Testing. She watches the play of emotions across his face — fear, shock, discomfort — before abruptly letting go.  
  
He doubles over, gasping.  
  
“You speak truth,” she declares. “Your mission is in earnest.”  
  
Kiran manages a nod, still stunned by the bizarre feel of — _what? a goddess? a woman? darkness itself?_ — invading his being. He can still feel her fingers wrapped around his heart, probing the depths of his past sins and regrets; his joys and sorrows. He feels her in his mind, questioning, searching; testing the strength of his fortitude. And beneath it all, he feels curiosity…a curiosity that yearns to know what it is like to be mortal.

To know what it is truly like to _feel._  
  
Before he can think on it further, the Goddess draws herself up to her full height and extends her hand. “I accept your offer, Kiran of the Destroyers.”  
  
Formidable as she is, he still towers over her by a full head, and must bend slightly to grasp her hand. “It is agreed, then, Kali Ma. We, your humble servants, will help you slay the hell-spawn Mahisa.”  
  
———  
  
“Damn,” Abbie says, glancing up as Franklin re-enters the library. “You read this yet?”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“Grace Dixon’s first journal. It’s got stories of how different people came to inherit the Witness line. Listen to this — _“And so it was that Kiran the Destroyer bore Witness to the fall of the demon Mahisa, forming an alliance with Kali, the Dark Goddess of Destruction, Creation, and Preservation.”_  
  
Abbie flips the page, whistling. “Wish we coulda had her on our side to defeat Pandora.”  
  
Franklin looks down at her over the thin rim of his spectacles. “And you would have been victorious?”  
  
She chuffs. “Damned if I know. Maybe I wouldn’t be dead. And Crane wouldn’t be down there alone.”  
  
“Hmmm.” Franklin turns and resumes stocking the shelves.

  
———  
  
The accord proves fruitful.

Kali and the Destroyers swiftly lay waste to Mahisa’s army, driving the creature’s hoard back to the Lower Realms. Kiran’s Other, the one with the fiery red hair and large eyes, proves useful, binding the creatures to their realm so that they may never escape again.  
  
Day by day, they grow closer to victory. Soon, Kali will return to the Upper Realms, where she belongs with the rest of her kind, and celebrate her hard-won victory.  
  
All is as it should be. 

And yet…

There is something. Not one particular thing the Goddess can point to; more of a general sense that has lately come into being...almost of - 

Unease does not encompass it. But is uncomfortable all the same. The one thing she knows is that it is there. Immutable and heavy; and she does not know how to rid herself of it.  
  
The first time it happens, they are cleaning their weapons by the river. They have reclaimed a large swathe of land from their enemy, and Kiran is curious how her discus flies and return without the use of magic. She is in the middle of explaining its function when she catches a faint smile on his face.

She frowns. "What?"  
  
“'Tis nothing,” he assures. But it is said too quickly, and he knows the darkness in her gaze well enough to come clean. “Only relief that my neck need not bend any further than it needs to."  
  
She realizes then that the sloping river bank has made her taller, and that she stands at his eye level. “You mock my height,” she says slowly.  
  
“Perish the thought. You’d strike my skull open in an instant.”  
  
“I am still sorely tempted to."  
  
His eyes slide to hers. “Perhaps if you could catch me.”  
  
This time, he can’t help the grin that escapes as he dodges the small fist that sails through the air. He leaps out of her way, easily running up the river bank with his long legs, and when she reaches him at last, she is smiling.  
  
Kiran does not understand why it makes him feel supremely accomplished; more so than having slain an entire army’s worth of demons.  
  
And Kali cannot understand it either, for she has never experienced this pleasant sensation, and does not know what it means.

———  
  
The second time, it happens on patrol.

They are surveying the land after a particularly long battle, when his Other suddenly sways atop her horse.

He catches her before she falls, and pulls her astride so that they ride together for the rest of the way.

"Your woman - she is not well," Kali says later, when they have made camp. His Other is asleep by the fire, and they are stockpiling weapons for the next day.

"Her magic takes much out of her," he says, sharpening a spear.

"Perhaps she should not fight tomorrow."

He stops, looks at her, and slowly puts the spear down. "Is it possible?"

"What?"

"Kali Ma, Goddess of Creation, Preservation and Destruction, showing signs of compassion?"

"We must battle Mahisa again at dawn," she says stiffly. "We cannot afford a weak link."

He catches her arm before she turns and leans down, tilting her chin to meet his eyes. "Hear me, Kali Ma, Daughter of Durga, Bearer of Darkness, Bringer of Ultimate Reality. It is not our fate to die separately. We will emerge victorious or defeated...together."

Later, when the fire has been put out, she hears his Other mumble awake and draw him closer. He goes easily, curling himself around her prostrate form.

Kiran does not understand why he feels guilty; she is, after all, his Other, to whom he has been sworn.  
  
And Kali cannot understand the irritation that comes over her, for she has never experienced this gnawing sensation, and does not know what it means.

———

The third time, it happens by the reed bed.  
  
Kali has always walked the Ganges at night, preferring to observe the wonders of the Middle Realm without interacting with humans. The form of a Goddess, after all, is no innocuous thing - fervent devotees falling at her feet, whispering prayers, begging for cures and healing. No - at this time of night, there are only flowers that bloom after the sun has set; the hoot of the owl as it nests; the symphony of cicadas as they settle. She bends down, arrested by the spark of fireflies above the water…  
  
When she hears a splash behind the reeds.

Eager to catch a glimpse of whatever creature has come alive, she swiftly draws back the thicket - and stops short at the sight.

It is Kiran, slumped against an outcropping of rock, eyes closed, head bent, naked...and member firmly in hand.

Kali frowns at the strange sight. Surely, if he seeks pleasure, should it not be with his Other? She has observed them enough to know they are more than partners; the way the woman places her hand upon his shoulder, or sits close to him by the fire when they break bread. They are intimate, of this much she is sure. But to what extent, and to what degree his heart wills it...

He pumps once and exhales. A soft moan.

...She is not certain.

She leans forward, curious. She has never witnessed this human habit, and it fascinates her in its peculiarity. The way he seems utterly controlled by the thickness between his fingers; the way his face contorts in a mixture of pain and bliss; the way his neck strains, veins thrown into stark relief as the blood pumps hot and fierce through his veins.

She can hear the roaring pulse beneath his skin that thunders like war-drums announcing the battle.

Her head pounds. Her throat is dry.

A pearl of moisture leaks from the reddened slit at his tip, and she leans in, tongue hitting the roof of her mouth as she wishes to taste it.

Her necklace hits the water with a heavy splash.

She freezes.

His eyes fly open, pinning her through the darkness. He grips the base of his shaft. Squeezes.

A moment as he holds her gaze. Focused. Heated.

A question hums in the air.

It is met by an unspoken answer.

Slowly, eyes still on her, he begins to pump once again.

Kali exhales shakily. She's hot: sweat at her neck, running between her breasts, and she throbs all over. There's a strange, pulsing wetness between her thighs. Frustrated, she press a hand there, unsure of how to quell it.

 _It won't stop like that,_ she hears him say.

Her head shoots up, startled, to find him staring at her intently.

 _How do you know?_ She quickly retorts, regretting the moment she says it. His mouth quirks, eyes trailing to the hand between her thighs.

She quickly extracts her fingers, wiping the slickness on her leg. She should not be here. She must leave.

 _Kali._ His voice is gentle. _Do you wish to feel?_

She hasn't the wits to ponder how she can hear him, or why he continues to stare at her like she is a jar of honey he wishes to lick clean. She can only feel the ache, and the overwhelming need _,_ and the -

 _Gods have mercy._ She squeezes her thighs together, rife with shame. If the gods saw her like this, surely they would laugh her straight out of the heavens. To be so vulnerable, so _weak_ for something she cannot even name...

 _Do you wish to feel, Kali?_ He loosens his grip, and his shaft falls towards her, offering itself.

Compelled by a force she can't quite name, the Goddess finds herself reaching out, stretching her consciousness across the river. Her energy pauses over him, hesitant and uncertain as it hovers - but then his eyes slip shut and he resumes his pace, and her mortal self watches from behind the reeds in fascination and horror as her energy settles over him like a warm, heavy blanket, seeping underneath his skin.

 _Heat. Heat and thrumming and life._ Kali closes her eyes, her human self giving over to the throb between her legs. Her fingers slip between her thighs, circling her swollen nub, sliding down and contouring over her folds, and down and down, until her fingers reach the place that aches within her most...

Kiran grunts, pumping in earnest as she settles into his consciousness, a silent observer to his bliss. She is his chest that expands and contracts with the effort of breath; she is his arm that strains with a fast, rapid cadence; she's his fist wrapping around him like a familiar vice; she's the hardness that surges against his fingers, begging to plunge inside; to slide in and be swallowed by slickness, hotness, a tight, engulfing haven...

Her fingers flick between her legs, fast and eager.

His fist pumps harder, a dizzying speed.

She whimpers; eyes pleading and hungry as they meet his own.

His breaths grow harsher and heavier with each stroke.

 _I need,_ she hears herself rasp. _I need, I need, I -_

"Kali," he moans, low growl breaking the silence as he stills and thrusts into the air.

She watches mutely, hungrily, as the thick release spurts over and down his fingers, spilling into the river, and she whimpers with the need to taste it; she hears the mantra whispered in his head that he wishes for more than this, for more than himself, alone, in an empty river bed, staring across the pond at a figment, a dream; a desire he dare not speak aloud, and she wishes to answer it.

But she can only obey her own body now, serve its own searing need. She trembles, legs quaking as his eyes flick down to devour the image of her smooth, splayed thighs, her small fingers encircling and reaching for places he aches to taste and suck and drink; her breasts taut and hard in the cool night wind; hair wild and plastered to her mouth that opens on a silent, keening cry -

She cries out. Hips rising to meet something that is not there; core pulsing and shuddering around nothing as it begs to be filled. She weeps for the thing that has awakened within her that can't be put back to sleep. For the space within her that will never be filled.

All the while, his eyes bear silent witness to her unraveling.

He longs to hold her; aches for it.

But he can't.

And she won't.

 _Kali._ His voice ghosts her brow, dares to brush along her cheek. _Kali._

It is too much; the sensation - the _feeling -_ of grief and loss and need. She shifts, mortal body collapsing into a whirling void of darkness.

She disappears, the only thing left in her wake the rustling of the reeds.

\------

Weeks pass.

The battle grows long and arduous.

Kali hunts Mahisa, more determined than ever to slay him. She disappears into the forest for days, returning only for more weapons.

Every night, Kiran waits for her return. He wants to apologize, and explain, and in his heart of hearts, confess to something he dare not speak in the light of day.  
  
Every night, Kali remains in the forest, where she is certain he will not find her.  
  
Kiran does not understand why he feels so rebuffed. After all, she is a Goddess; and he has his Other, to whom he is sworn.  
  
And Kali cannot understand the emptiness that claws at her, for she has never experienced this aching sensation, and does not know what it means.

 


End file.
